Putting microcontrollers in everything and tying appliances into the internet has become the DIYers’ bread and butter. There’s a ton of benefits from an Internet-enabled coffee maker, but actually building these projects takes a little bit of knowledge. Enter [Dave] and [John] with Twine – a little Internet enabled box that connects physical reality to the digital world.

The hardware inside a Twine is a small board that combines WiFi, an accelerometer and temperature sensor. The Twine is programmed ‘in the cloud’ with a simple if/then condition. A Twine will send you a text, email or tweet when the condition is met. For example, you could put a Twine on a door and program the accelerometer to text you when someone comes knocking.

Twine isn’t an entirely closed system; there’s a plug for additional sensors (moisture detection, for example), and the data from sensors can be pushed out to a server. You can pick up a twine for $100 from the Kickstarter; it’s a little rich for our blood, but we’re sure it’ll be a useful device.